Olivia Chow says that while she plans to stay neutral in the upcoming NDP leadership race to replace her late husband Jack Layton, she still has every intention of casting a ballot.

Olivia Chow, NDP MP for Trinity-Spadina and wife of NDP Leader Jack Layton, who died last month of cancer, speaks to reporters at an Ottawa hotel on Sept. 9, 2011. Party officials were meeting to discuss the ground rules for the leadership race to replace Layton.

OTTAWA — The federal New Democrats will choose their new leader at a convention in Toronto next March, giving time for the party to let its membership catch up to its caucus in Quebec.

“The leadership rules will provide for a vigorous and dynamic debate of ideas,” Rebecca Blaikie, the NDP federal treasurer told reporters following a meeting of the party’s federal council in Ottawa on Friday. “They strike the right balance between providing time for the party to grow and ensuring we have a leader in place as soon as possible.”

The leadership convention will take place on March 24 at the Canadian National Exhibition grounds in Toronto, where the late Jack Layton was chosen to lead the party in 2003.

The entry fee for candidates will be $15,000, which is double what candidates were required to fork over for the 2003 leadership race but still far less than the $100,000 the candidates paid for the 2004 Conservative leadership contest.

“I feel that that the $15,000 entry fee strikes the right balance,” Blaikie said when asked to explain the rationale behind the figure. “We know that this is a serious job that people are applying for, but we are also a party of working people and we want to make sure that folks have the opportunity to participate in this race.”

The deadline for signing up new members is next Feb. 18 and the next leader will be decided with a one member, one vote system that for the first time will not give any extra weight to affiliated union members.

The race will begin officially on Sept. 15, the last day of the NDP caucus retreat in Quebec City, which gives the party just over six months to broaden its support in Quebec, where membership numbers lag far behind the 59 Quebec MPs elected last May.

“The strategy is that the race will last 192 days and we will have 192 days to search for Quebecers and Canadians and encourage them to join our movement,” Blaikie said when asked about the strategy to grow the membership in Quebec.

The timeline is likely good news for Deputy Leader Thomas Mulcair, a Quebec MP and potential front-runner who threatened last week not to enter the race if the convention was held in January.

Mulcair was not available for comment on Friday.

“He will take the time to analyze these rules and continue his process of consultation and reflection,” his spokeswoman Chantale Turgeon wrote in an email Friday.

New Democrat Interim Leader Nycole Turmel said earlier Friday she will unveil the rules she expects each leadership candidate to follow when the party caucus meets in Quebec City next week.

With the vast majority of the long list of potential leadership candidates coming from inside the 102-member NDP caucus, Turmel will need to establish some ground rules to guard against division and ensure fair play among those running for leader.

Turmel reminded the party that it needs to remain united as it heads into a previously unexpected leadership race following the Aug. 22 death of Layton.

“Every step we take, we will be watched closely,” Turmel told members of the NDP federal council. “We must remain focused on the job of building our party. Jack showed us how we can do politics differently, how we can listen and respect other opinions and at the end of the day, remain united.

“And that is what we need to do today,” Turmel continued. “We will make difficult decisions, but at the end of the day, we need to walk out of here and be united.”

Party officials said Turmel’s rules could involve changing up critic roles and also reminding caucus of basic rules like not using parliamentary resources to fundraise or campaign.

Turmel got one potentially divisive debate out of the way early when she revealed on Thursday that the party executive had decided not to recommend giving greater weight to union votes.

The 2003 convention that elected Layton leader was the first time the federal New Democrats used a one-member, one-vote system, but as with previous races it also gave affiliated unions 25 per cent of the vote.

At the 2003 NDP policy convention in Quebec City, delegates voted to rid the constitution of that provision in a move to broaden the base of support and be able to play within the new set of political financing rules that forbid unions and corporations from donating to federal political parties.

It nonetheless remained at the discretion of the NDP federal council and without any clear signal from the top or the labour movement that favouring union votes was not up for discussion, likely candidates began weighing in publicly on whether the provision should remain.

This exposed potential rifts between likely front-runners Brian Topp, the NDP party president who wanted to keep labour in, and Mulcair, who argued that union members should be treated like any other member of the party.

After getting the sense that members were uninterested in reopening the debate after adopting a straight one-member, one-vote system in 2006, the party executive decided sometime this week to focus instead on recommending a timeline and entry fee for the leadership race.

Meanwhile, Olivia Chow says that while she plans to stay neutral in the upcoming New Democrat leadership race to replace her late husband Jack Layton, she still has every intention of casting a ballot.

“It’s one person, one vote. I’m a person. I’m going to vote. Are you kidding?” Chow, laughing, told reporters outside the NDP federal council meeting in Ottawa on Friday, the first time she has faced the parliamentary press gallery since Layton died last month. “I just don’t want to talk about it publicly.”

Chow, the NDP MP for Trinity — Spadina, insisted that she will remain neutral in the leadership race in order to avoid the impression that she was delivering the endorsement of Layton.

“There are lots of amazing talents in the NDP. I have trust that there will be a wonderful leader being elected and as the person that had been married (to) Jack Layton for so long and shared his life passion — both spiritually and through his work — I don’t think it’s fair for me to comment on which leader is better than others,” Chow said when asked to explain her decision.

“One thing that Jack has is that he believes every individual has great strength, a different kind of strength,” Chow said. “He believed in people’s potential. He believed that there is greatness inside of every person, every human being, so for me to comment that one person is better than others, I don’t think that’s my place.”

Chow also would not bite on a question that was clearly designed to figure out whether she would prefer a longtime party strategist — such as likely candidate Topp — or someone already in the public eye.

“I think the key one is someone that shared the NDP values,” Chow said when asked what characteristics she would look for in a leader. “We have 50 years of history. We helped start the national Medicare and pensions to create a country where no one is left behind ...

“Every human being has different strengths, so it’s hard for me to comment on what strength is better than others and they will all be different,” said Chow. “I think ultimately it’s the values and as New Democrats I am sure that all leadership candidates share these same values.”

Chow said she would also remain neutral behind the scenes.

Chow, who has earlier said would not run for the leadership, said she plans to focus on being an MP and introduce a private member’s bill calling for a national transit strategy this fall.

Paul Moist, the national president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, accused the media and potential candidates of using the weighted voting issue to advance their interests.

“The expected range of views on who will run and who might win has been cast within the context of the NDP’s historic relationship with organized labour. The debate has come from some truly questionable quarters, borders on the absurd and it is the clearest example of a red herring thrown into the public discourse that we have witnessed in some time,” Moist wrote.

Moist then suggested that both Topp and Mulcair had gone too far.

“Two leading candidates, both honourable gentlemen, albeit each with vested interests, have squared off over the issue of union weighted voting in NDP leadership contests,” Moist wrote. “One refers to labour as no different than environmental groups. The other in an obvious move to court union support, has said the weighted system must be maintained.”

Moist then said that media commentators have gone beyond talking about the weighted voting system and framed the question as “whether a modern NDP can afford the relationship with labour” at all, a discussion he dismissed as “playing the ‘union bogeyman’ card”.

“The pundits, the editorial writers and indeed the candidates-in-waiting are all, quite simply put, wrong,” wrote Moist. “There is no issue over this question.”

Canadian Labour Congress Ken Georgetti, who last week declined an interview with the Star to discuss whether he would want a weighted voting system for unions, also issued a press release on Friday morning claiming it had never been up for discussion.

“I want to set the record straight,” Georgetti said in the statement emailed to members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. “The NDP’s constitution stipulates a one-member-one-vote process for choosing the leader and that vote is no way weighted in favour of union members.”

Georgetti added that the CLC co-chaired a committee to examine the effect that the new political party financing legislation would have on the weighted vote system and concluded that it would cause the NDP to violate the law.

“The committee recommended that the party amend its constitution to that effect and that was done,” said Georgetti.

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